17 Sep 2011
by claudinein Doggy Bag ? Tags: food issues, fruits, local, seasonal, vegetables
Why in the height of the local garlic season here does my local grocer sell garlic from China over 7,000 miles away? Thanks to factory farming and globalization, I have grown accustomed to the convenience of supermarkets and their prices. I can have strawberries, asparagus, and red bell peppers at any time of the year without regard to the changing seasons. With my fruits and vegetables traveling sometimes thousands of miles, they are picked before maturing, sitting in airplanes, distributor centers, and finally on the supermarket shelf for an unspecified time before making it’s way into my fridge where it continues to lose it’s taste and nutritional value. Fruits and vegetables have become bland. That’s what the “farm to table” movement is trying to change. It encourages production of local food to serve local consumers, and thereby providing fresher in-season food. The “farm to table” and the “local food” movements can sometimes be complex affairs dealing with the economy, the environment, and sustainability. I’m not particularly interested in the mumble jumble of things like food miles and argument of whether or not it costs more energy to support a small local farm than to air freight in my vegetables. I just want fresh produce that tastes like it supposed to. Supporting our local community and economy while encouraging sustainability is a plus too!
To help find what fruits and vegetables are in season, epicurious.com has created this crafty seasonal ingredient map browsable by state and month, while localeating.ca has their list by province for our Canadian friends.
For a good and brief discussion on what is local:
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/eatlocal/
28 Jun 2011
by claudinein Kitchen !, Tarte Tags: cassis, current, fruit, groseille, tart, tarte
The tartness of fresh currents from the garden combined with a sugary crust makes the perfect early summer dessert. I was lucky enough to reap the bounty of a wonderful home garden lost in a quaint French village.
tart crust:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), cut into small pieces
a pinch of salt
filling:
enough red and black currants to fill your tart pan (cleaned & stems removed)
2 eggs
4 tablespoons sugar
100ml heavy cream
In a bowl, blend flour, sugar, cornstarch, and salt well. Add butter to mixture with fingers until crumbly, then pat together to form a ball. Flatten dough onto bottom and sides of tart pan. Fork the bottom and bake at 350F for 10 minutes.
Remove tart from oven and fill tart pan with red and black currents. Mix eggs, sugar, and cream in a separate bowl until a smooth consistency. Pour over currents. Bake at 350F for another 20 minutes or until moderately browned.
pâte à tarte:
120g de farine
50g de sucre
15g (environ 2 cuillère à soupe) de maïzena
120g de beurre, coupé en petit morceau
1 pincée de sel
garniture de tarte:
environ 400g de groseilles et cassis (nettoyez et équeutez)
2 oeufs
4 cuillère à soupe de sucre
100ml crèam
Dans un bol, melangez bien la farine, le sucre, le maïzena, et un pincée de sel. Ajoutez le beurre dans le melange farine avec les doigts jusqu’il s’emiette facilement, puis formez une balle. Étalez la balle de pâte sur un moule à tarte. Piquez le fond de la pâte avec une fourchette. Faire cuire à 180C pendant 10 minutes.
Remplissez le moule à tarte avec des groseilles et des cassis. Mélangez bien les oeufs, le sucre, et la crèam dans un autre bol. Verser le mélange oeufs par-dessus les groseilles-cassis. Faire cuire à 180C pendant 20 minutes ou jusqu’à ce que doré.
11 May 2011
by claudinein Doggy Bag ? Tags: food issues, food policy, health, sugar
Anyone who’s taken a New York City subway lately can tell you how many packets of sugar are in a soda, fruit juice, or sports drink, thanks to the New York City Health Department’s “Are you pouring on the pounds?” campaign. Jamie Oliver reminds us repeatedly in each episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution the amount of sugar that is found in flavored milk and other food items in our public schools. Last month, a New York Times Magazine article takes it another step further by asking “Is Sugar Toxic?”. I think we can safely say that the war on sugar in on.
Sugar is a carbohydrate that exists naturally in fruits and vegetables, but more commonly it refers to the sweet crystallizable material known as sucrose. Most food historians trace the origins of sugar making in it’s crystalized form from sugar cane to the Indian subcontinent. This was later transmitted through trade routes to China and the Arab world, and subsequently to Europe and the Americas. As sugar became more readily available and affordable, we incorporated this pleasurable flavor into our existing recipes and created new food items such as jam and cake. Today, we find sugar added in so many processed food items at the supermarket and other food outlets that we need to look for the unsweetened variety in order to buy a basic product. Unsweetened is no longer the norm and we can as easily find sugar in the original formula of applesauce as we can in a random can of vegetables. It’s easy to believe that the average American consumes way over the recommend amount of sugar, but it’s astonishing to really realize how much sugar is in our diets without even knowing it.
White sugar that we normally find on the table is just one of many forms of sugar and sweeteners found in our food. There are numerous varieties of white, brown, and liquid sugars as well as plenty other natural and artificial sweeteners. When looking at food labels, look out for less common names like dextrose, fruit juice concentrate, glucose syrup, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, sorbitol and other sugar alcohols usually ending in -itol, and artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame K, or neotame. I’m not advocating a ban on sugar, but do you know how much sugar is in your food?
